"Style is, among other things, a product of what we avoid as well as of what we do."— Wilson Follett, Modern American Usage: A Guide (1966)

Charlie's new book, How to Tell Fate from Destiny and Other Skillful Word Distinctions, has just been released by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt along with the audio edition, narrated by Charlie for HighBridge, an imprint of Recorded Books.

His personal project, The Enthusiasms of Charles Harrington Elster, is also in the works. See "Elster Update" on the Comments page for more information.

THE LATEST OUTRAGEOUSACCIDENTS OF STYLE

Good Advice on How Not to Write Badly, with Blunderful Examples Drawn from Published Prose

"What Colin Kaepernick is, at least for the moment, is one of the most important athletes of the 21st century, and beyond doubt one of the most polarizing," writes sports columnist Nick Canepa in The San Diego Union-Tribune (February 21, 2019). Did you discern the egregious accident of style in that sentence?

There is no excuse—ever—to allow "what it is, is" (with or without a comma or an intervening phrase) to disgrace your prose. This "ungainly construction," as Garner's Modern English Usage puts it mildly, is a verbal tic that has become a virus. It has migrated from speech into print at an alarmingly rapid rate, apparently because so many writers today suffer from the delusion that it's acceptable, even preferable, to write as you speak.

What it is is a noun clause that needs a verb to follow it—as you can see from how I had to word that. But the noun clause itself is pleonastic and your sentence is best begun straightforwardly. In other words, you can easily fix the what it is, is problem by replacing that phrase with it is or it's. Thus, "What it is is a goofy exercise in showboat tourism" (New York Times) becomes "It's a goofy exercise in showboat tourism."

Canepa should have written "Colin Kaepernick, at least for the moment, is one of the most important athletes of the 21st century . . ." That's so much smoother and more readable, it's hard to imagine how any professional writer wouldn't put it that way. But apparently some columnists don't mind padding their prose with the odious pleonasms of casual speech if it helps meet the stipulated word count.

Can you tell what's wrong with the wording of the following photo caption? "A 'statement ceiling' shows how planks, beams and arches dramatically can enhance a room." (San Diego Union-Tribune, February 16, 2019, E2). It's not the quotes around "statement ceiling," and it's not the lack of a serial comma after "beams," although it would be nice if there were one. It's the placement of the adverb "dramatically."

When you want to use an adverb with a so-called compound verb—a verb in two parts, like "will do," "are going," "have been," and "can enhance"—the proper and most powerful place to put your adverb is between the two parts of the compound, not before it: e.g., "will never do," "are immediately going," "have always been," and "can dramatically enhance." That's why the curious journalistic penchant for placing "also" before a compound verb (as in "She also has been" instead of "She has also been") flies in the face of the natural stress and style of good English.

Garner's Modern English Usage has this to say about the matter: "Many writers fall into awkward, unidiomatic sentences when they misguidedly avoid splitting up verb phrases. Although most authorities squarely say that the best place for the adverb is in the midst of the verb phrase, many writers nevertheless harbor a misplaced aversion, probably because they confuse a split verb phrase with the split infinitive" (the fear of which is a persistent, baseless crotchet and NOT a mistake).

Alas, it is my sad duty to note here that in reportage on the State of the Union address today (February 6, 2019) I found three blunders in syndicated articles from The Associated Press and the Washington Post.

The AP report, written by Julie Pace and Catherine Lucey, says that Trump painted "a foreboding picture of the risks posed to Americans by illegal immigration"; later, it says that "the 72-year-old Trump harkened back to moments of American greatness . . ."

In the first example, "foreboding," which means "ominous, portending evil," seems to be misused for "forbidding," which means "dangerous or menacing." Perhaps it's a toss-up, but given Trump's vicious anti-immigrant rhetoric, I think the picture he painted was forbidding. You decide.

The second example is clear-cut. "Harken back" and "hearken back" are persistent misrenderings of the proper expression, "hark back." The forms ending in /-en/ mean "to listen, give one's attention to," while "hark back" means "to refer to or recall an earlier topic, time, or circumstance."

Finally, in a separate article about the Democratic response, Vanessa Williams and Sean Sullivan of the Post write that "polls suggest" the government shutdown "was unpopular with the public . . ." "Unpopular" means "not favored by the public or the people," so they should have jettisoned the superfluous and redundant phrase "with the public." Technically, this is called a pleonasm, and if you'd like to know more about this accident of style, please read my essay on pleonasms under Articles in the sidebar on the right.

Why is it that so many writers can't distinguish between the adjectives precipitous and precipitate (pruh-SIP-uh-tit)? In a syndicated article for The New York Times (February 1, 2019), Catie Edmonson reported thatSenator Mitch McConnell had "drafted an amendment warning that 'the precipitous withdrawal of United States forces from [Syria or Afghanistan] could put at risk hard-won gains and United States national security.'"

That's wrong, and here's why: Precipitous means "steep, like a cliff or precipice." Precipitate means "sudden, abrupt," or "rash, impetuous." In journalism and business writing, precipitous, steep, is continually misused for precipitate, sudden or rash. For example, here's a misuse I culled from the Wall Street Journal: "Striking Iran's nuclear program will not be precipitous [precipitate] or poorly thought out." (For a fuller discussion of this confusion, see my new book How to Tell Fate from Destiny and Other Skillful Word Distinctions.)

And here's more on Sen. McConnell: The second paragraph of the January 27, 2019, cover story about him in The New York Times Magazine contains this sentence: "Republican senators spent the lunch hour shuttling back and forth between Vice President Mike Pence and McConnell, sequestered in different quarters on the Capitol's second floor." What's wrong with it? If you're thinking redundancy, you're right.

"Shuttle back and forth" is a common redundancy that often slips by editors because it's regrettably not widely understood that "shuttle" by itself means "to travel back and forth, move to and fro." It's easily corrected by deleting "back and forth."

And later in that same story, the author, Charles Homans, uses the phrase "exact replica," a hoary redundancy. As I note in my new book How to Tell Fate from Destiny and Other Skillful Word Distinctions, a replica is properly an exact reproduction of a work of art, traditionally one produced by the artist. It is not, and should not be used as, a fancier synonym of "copy" or "duplicate," and it should never be modified by words like exact, authentic, perfect, or genuine. That's pleonastic and smells like advertising copy.

And alas, now even The New York Times can't properly distinguish the verbs lay and lie. In a syndicated news item (January 25, 2019) I found this sentence: "The gunman who burst into a SunTrust Bank in Sebring, Fla., on Wednesday made the five women he found inside lay [make that lie] facedown on the floor before he shot them . . ." A horrible crime, and a horrible assault on the language.

In The San Diego Union-Tribune (January 25, 2019, B1), columnist Michael Smolens wrote, "That shrunk to less than half a percentage point by the June 2018 primary . . ." Do you know what's wrong with that? "Shrunk" is not the past tense of "shrink"; it's the past participle. The verb is conjugated "shrink, shrank, shrunk." You shrink today, you shrank yesterday, and you have shrunk in the past. In short, "shrunk" needs an auxiliary or helping verb, and if your sentence doesn't need one, it's a clear sign that the proper word is "shrank." Thank you, Disney, for compounding the confusion with your dumb movie "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids."

A photo caption appearing in The San Diego Union-Tribune (B1, December 31, 2018) read, "The food truck expected to make a couple hundred pizzas during Sunday's celebration . . ." Can you detect the accident of style in that excerpt?

Using couple as an adjective followed by a noun—as in a couple people, a couple dollars, a couple miles—is excusable in informal speech but unbecoming in careful writing. The circumspect stylist knows that couple is properly a noun that requires the preposition of to link it to a following noun: a couple of people, a couple of dollars, a couple of miles. Without that intervening of, the noun couple becomes an ungainly adjective modifying the noun that follows, so that phrases like a couple weeks and a couple hundred, though commonly heard, are, grammatically speaking, as peculiar as a flock pigeons, a bunch grapes, and a number questions. (You may drop of, however, if more follows couple: a couple more drinks.)

The Associated Press syndicated an article (December 19, 2018) about how the grocery chain Kroger "is trying to leap into the driverless market, announcing Tuesday that it is ready to bring milk, eggs and apples to some customers' homes in a vehicle with nobody at the wheel."

What's the scariest part of that sentence for you? The driverless vehicle? I guess, but we may have to bite our lips and get used to it. The lack of a serial comma after "eggs"? Not for journalists, who insist on writing "the American flag is red, white and blue" instead of the preferable "red, white, and blue." For me, the scariest part is the misuse of "bring" for "take."

In proper usage, "take" means you move things from where you or the things are to someplace else, while "bring" means things are moved from someplace else to your location. Thus any delivery service has to take things to your location. But when they've been delivered you can say those things were brought to you.

So now that you've read that, you can surely deduce what's wrong with this sentence from The New York Times Arts&Leisure section (December 30, 2018) about Lin-Manuel Miranda: "Now the 'Hamilton' creator is bringing [taking] the musical to San Juan."

An ad at the bottom of the front page of the Arts&Leisure section of The New York Times (December 2, 2018) boasts that the Broadway musical The Prom is a "Critic's Pick." Let's hope that refers to the one critic at the Times who picked it. If it's the pick of various critics, it should be a "Critics' Pick."

Do you know the distinction between loath and loathe? Consider this sentence: "Although parents are loathe to admit it, they often have specific gender preferences for their yet-to-be-born children. . . ." (The Atlantic's email newsletter, "The Family Weekly," December 1, 2018). That loathe should have been loath. Do you know why?

Loathe, which is pronounced with the /th/ of this and rhymes with clothe, is a verb that means "to despise, abhor." Loath, which is pronounced with the /th/ of thin and rhymes with both, is an adjective that means "reluctant, disinclined." Properly, you are loathto do something, not loatheto do it. And, if I may say, I loathe this accident of style, which has become increasingly common in educated speech and edited writing.

Do you know the subtle rule regarding the use of "both"? Consider this sentence and see if you can tell what's wrong with it: "The lawsuit . . . is the culmination of a . . . quest by marine mammal researchers and advocates to gain access to necropsies they say will help them and others understand how to better care for cetaceans both in captivity and the wild" (San Diego Union-Tribune, November 29, 2018, C1).

As I note in my book The Accidents of Style, when you follow both with and in a construction that means "this as well as that," you must make sure that whatever follows both and and is grammatically parallel. Thus the end of that sentence should read "both in captivity and [in] the wild." Another acceptable way of wording it, for proper balance, would be to put both after in, making it "in both captivity and the wild."

I subscribe to an online publication called "The Hot Sheet," which tracks trends and opportunities in the publishing industry. (Note that "which.") In their recent newsletter (November 28, 2018), this sentence appeared: "At Digital Book World in October, a panel of experts discussed the challenges faced by today's libraries, who must deal with growing patron demand for ebooks and digital audio amidst changing publisher terms and access."

Notice anything awry with that? If you surmised that the "who" after the comma should have been "which," hearty congratulations to you. But if you weren't sure what the error was, please read my article on "The Curious Corporate Who," which you'll find under Articles in the sidebar on the right.

It's not often that the print edition of The Atlantic commits an accident of style, but I found a doozy in the article "Crowdsourcing the Novel" by Bianca Bosker in the December 2018 issue (p. 18): the phrase "graduating high school." You don't graduate an institution; you graduate from it. (For further discussion of this, see my book The Accidents of Style, accident 176, page 117.)

Here's a photo caption from the sports section of The San Diego Union-Tribune (November 15, 2018): "Lakers forward LeBron James, who past Wilt Chamberlain for fifth on the scoring list, looks for a way to the basket. . . ." Anything about that seem remiss to you? "Past" is an adjective meaning "before, in some previous time"; "passed" is a verb, the past tense of "pass," meaning "to go by, go farther than." So it should have been "James . . . passed Wilt Chamberlain" on the list. (Or it could have been "James passed to Wilt Chamberlain, who dunked for the winning basket." But that would be too cool.)

In the October 8, 2018, edition of The New Yorker, Larissa MacFarquhar writes, ". . . the unit was conceived as a kind of nostalgic stage set, a harkening back to an America of eighty or ninety years ago . . ." (p. 42). To "hearken," also sometimes spelled "harken," means to "listen, give one's attention to." But when you "hark back," you refer to an earlier time, topic, or circumstance. Thus the proper phrase in that context is "a harking back."

In news coverage of the NFL protests during the national anthem, more and more journalists are using the variant past tense kneeled instead of the standard knelt. (Two examples from a recent syndicated article: "Wilson kneeled behind teammates lined up standing along the sideline." "Stills kneeled during the anthem during the 2016-17 seasons . . .") Why they are doing this is unclear because kneeled is an "invariably inferior" form, says Garner's Modern English Usage, and knelt has long been the preferred past tense and past participle.

Now, here's an interesting accident of punctuation that appeared in my local paper. Because it involves quotation marks, I'm reproducing it exactly as it was printed, with no additional quotation marks:

"'Will we ever find the answer?'" Sipe asked, Doyle said.

Do you see the problem? The sentence is a quote from Doyle that begins with a quote from Sipe. Doyle's quote should be enclosed in double quotation marks, and Sipe's quote should be enclosed in single quotation marks. Sipe's quote is punctuated correctly, but the double quotation marks ending Doyle's quote are misplaced, and should be placed after asked.

How good are you at conjugating irregular English verbs? Consider this sentence, from a New York Times article about Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court (syndicated July 10, 2018): "As staff secretary to Bush, he said in 2006, he strived to be 'an honest broker for the president.'"

If that strived sounded funny to you, you have a good ear for irregularity. It should have been strove. You strive now, you strove before, and before that you have striven.

Here's a forehead-slapper for you: Michael D. Shear writes for The New York Times. But in his article today (June 28, 2018), which was syndicated on the front page of my local paper, he was given this bio end-tag: "Shear writes for The New Your Times." Two out of three ain't bad, right?

"Theodore White invented a genre with his groundbreaking book 'The Making of the President, 1960,'" writes syndicated columnist Hugh Hewitt of the Washington Post (May 16, 2018), "and news junkies ever since have eagerly awaited postmortems from inside the operations of the various Republican and Democrat presidential campaigns." Did you catch the politically incorrect accident of style?

Democrat is a noun, not an adjective. The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage says, “Do not use Democrat as a modifier (the Democrat Party); that construction is used by opponents to disparage the party.” The word democrat, whether capitalized or lowercased, is a noun, never an adjective, so—in nonpartisan prose, at least—it should never modify another noun. The adjective is democratic and the name of the party is the Democratic Party.

"How great of a motivational speaker is Tony Robbins?" asks San Diego Union-Tribune columnist Karla Peterson (April 9, 2018, page B1). Can you discern the problem with that question?

Inserting an unnecessary and pleonastic "of" after adjectives such as "great" and "big" is a frequent mistake in speech that should never make its way into print. The most common form of this error is the locution "no big of a deal," in which both "of" and "a" are unnecessary." Make it "no big deal."

From The Associated Press, in my local fishwrap's sports section (April 11, 2018): "Manolas, a center back known more for his defensive skills then for his attacking abilities . . ." OY! "Then" instead of the proper "than"? Now that's bush league!

Consider this sentence: "UFC star Conor McGregor has turned himself into police in the wake of a backstage melee that he instigated . . ." (San Diego Union-Tribune news services, April 6, 2018, page D5).

In my new book, How to Tell Fate from Destiny, and Other Skillful Word Distinctions (coming in October), I explain that "with phrasal verbs employing in, in and to are always separate, as going in to work today, came in to see her, and turned himself in to the police (not into, which would indicate a ludicrous transformation)."

Kevin Acee, who covers the San Diego Padres for The San Diego Union-Tribune, writes, "The Padres might start the season with just seven relievers, one fewer than they think they'll need . . ." (March 27, 2018, page D5). Can you spot the boo-boo in that sentence?

Careful writers know that less applies to mass nouns like sugar and fewer applies to count nouns like beets. But what many don't know is there’s another, more subtle rule about fewer and less: We use fewer with plural nouns and less with singular nouns. Since a singular noun will always follow or refer to one, you should have one less of whatever it is, not one fewer, e.g.: “Angels closer Francisco Rodriguez had one fewer [one less] save than San Diego has victories” (San Diego Union-Tribune again).

Syndicated columnist Dan Walters writes, "The noise from the podium and in the hallways of San Diego's cavernous convention center was mostly directed at retelling the world that the state's Democrats loath President Trump" (San Diego Union-Tribune, March 3, 2018, p. B7). What are the two problems with that sentence?

First we have the common misuse of podium for lectern. “A lectern is the stand on which a speaker places his or her notes,” says Bryson’s Dictionary of Troublesome Words. “A podium is the raised platform on which the speaker and lectern stand.” Second, we have an uncommon misuse of the adjective loath (meaning "disinclined, reluctant," and pronounced to rhyme with both) for the verb loathe (meaning "to hate, abhor," and rhyming with the verb clothe). The mistake is usually the other way around, with the verb improperly used for the adjective, as in "She was loathe [make that loath] to do it."

"Not only that, but there's a couple of little-known progressive candidates . . . running to his left," writes Michael Smolens in The San Diego Union-Tribune (February 23, 2018, p. B4). Did you discern the error of number (a singular-plural conflict between a verb and noun) in that sentence?

There's should be there are. As I have noted in my book The Accidents of Style, there's no excuse for using there's with a plural noun (in this case "candidates"). We hear this error of number with "there's" in speech all the time, but in writing (especially professional writing!) it's not just ungrammatical. It's lazy, lame, and unprofessional.

"Do you know Jeffrey W—?" LinkedIn asks me, adding that "You and Jeffrey have 4 mutual connections in common." This accident of style belongs to a category I like to call "When in Doubt, Wear a Belt and Suspenders and Still Watch Your Pants Fall Down."

As I note in my forthcoming book, How to Tell Fate from Destiny, and Other Skillful Word Distinctions," mutual refers to reciprocal relations between two entities and common refers to relations shared by two or more. Of course, this traditional distinction has been muddied ever since Charles Dickens published Our Mutual Friend in 1865, but that doesn't give LinkedIn license to drown it in pleonasm.

If they had said Jeffrey and I have four mutual connections, that would have been wrong but venial, and if they had said Jeffrey and I have four connections in common, that would have been unimpeachable. But they chose to "completely surround everything on all sides," sealing their ridiculously redundant fate.

All right, folks, it's time to play havoc with conjugating irregular verbs. First, what word is both the past tense and past participle of kneel? Some news reports on the "political football" dustup between the NFL and an always Twitter-happy Donald Trump said that last Sunday (September 24, 2017) certain players and owners kneeled during the national anthem.

Sound the Blunder Buzzer, please! The past tense and past participle of kneel is properly knelt. Although you will see kneeled listed as a variant form in dictionaries, usage experts frown on it and knelt is six times more common in print.

Now, tell me what's wrong with this sentence from a syndicated New York Times article by Dan Bilefsky (September 27, 2017): "During World War I, the 93 U-boats stationed at Belgian ports sunk more than 2,550 Allied ships." If you've been following the drift here, you will have guessed it's that funky sunk, which should properly be sank. This verb is conjugated just like drink, drank, drunk. You sink a U-boat today, you sank one yesterday, and you have sunk them in the past.

Here's my nomination for Weirdest Typo of the Year (from an article by Dennis Lin in the sports section of The San Diego Union-Tribune, September 26, 2017): "According to Bill James' Pythaogrean expectation, which is based on runs scored and runs allowed, they should have been 58-98." Pythaogrean for Pythagorean can only be described as a monument of metathesis ("the transposition of letters, syllables, or sounds in a word" — Random House Dictionary).

I have a double-whammy to report from the front page (A1) of my regrettably uncopyedited local paper, The San Diego Union-Tribune (September 18, 2017). In an article about the mysterious sinking of a U.S. naval vessel in 1918, Jeanette Steele asks, "What sunk the armored cruiser San Diego, just 10 miles off the New York coastline during World War I?" Possibly your grammar, Ms. Steele (and that unnecessary and intrusive comma before "just"). The past tense of "sink" is "sank"; "sunk" is the past participle (requiring a helping verb such as "had," "have," or "has" before it). So it should have been "What sank the San Diego . . ."

The other front-page SDU-T accident of style has to win top honors for the most unbelievable (and perhaps creative) blunder of the year. In a teaser for the 2017 Emmy Awards, where "The Handmaid's Tale" won top honors, someone wrote that the show "also wind best drama writing and directing . . ." Yes, wind. I'm not kidding. So much for the traditional past tense "won," and they can't even spell the nonstandard "winned" correctly.

I don't get to beat up on The Atlantic in this space very often, which is a good thing because it's one of the best-edited publications around. But, unfortunately, two accidents leapt out at me recently.

One was in an emissive (my coinage for an email message) about "Radio Atlantic," the magazine's new podcast platform. It said, "We're living in historic times. Who better than a 160-year-old magazine to help you make sense of them."

They got "historic" right, as I would expect, avoiding the common confusion with "historical." "Historic" means "making history" or "important in history," while "historical" means "pertaining to or part of history." But, in the second sentence, does that "who" jump out at you as eccentric in any way?

Using the pronoun "who" for anything other than people is a weird new trend that I discuss in my essay "The Curious Corporate Who," which you will find a link to in the sidebar to the right. My argument, in short, is that things such as corporations and institutions may be composed of people, but (despite the Citizens United decision) they are not people and should properly be referred to with the pronouns "that" or "which." And a magazine, no matter how venerable, is definitely not a "who." Using "who" for a magazine is as foreign to my ear as saying "my essay 'The Curious Corporate Who,' who you will find a link to in the sidebar to the right."

The other Atlantic lapsus appeared in the July/August 2017 issue, in James Parker's article "What Inspired the Summer of Love?" (page 34). "But what it is, the label on the glass case tells me," Parker writes, "is the top half of a set of hospital scrubs . . ."

Take out "the label on the glass case tells me" and you have, in bold relief, one of the ugliest accidents of style to rear its head in contemporary prose: "But what it is, is . . ." I discuss this verbal virus, which has migrated from speech to print, in Accident 281 of The Accidents of Style.

The problem stems from beginning a sentence with a noun clause ("What it is") that requires a verb to follow, creating the ungainly repetition. The solution is simply to drop the opening noun clause and begin with a real subject. Parker's clumsy sentence could have been fixed easily by starting with "the label" instead of the bumbling noun clause: "But the label on the glass case tells me that it's the top half of a set of hospital scrubs." One further example should suffice (from The New York Times, no less): "But what it is is trash." Huh? How about the far more emphatic "But it's trash"?

Remember learning about ordinal numbers in grade school? You know, first, second, third, fourth and so on? Brian Hiro of The San Diego Union-Tribune apparently missed that lesson, and in that paper's "Off the Wall" column (July 3, 2017, D2), compiled "from U-T news services" and "online reports" (watch out for that one!), he wrote, or reprinted, this gaffe: "The baseball that Pete Rose swatted to left-center field for his record-setting 4,192th hit [make that 4,192nd hit] has sold at auction for more than $403,000." The report failed to note that after notching that milestone hit, Rose stole both secondth and thirdth base.

Find the two errors in this sentence, which appeared in The San Diego Union-Tribune, June 26, 2017, page B1: "Gloria said that electing politicians when turnout is highest mean more people will pick their representative."

Answer: Mean should be means, and representative should be representatives.

Glance to your right and take a look at the cover of my book The Accidents of Style in the center column. Then ask yourself if confusing "their," "there," and "they're" is an accident of style confined only to amateur texts and tweets and not a DEFCON 1 threat to published prose.

In her column "Making a Difference" (San Diego Union-Tribune, June 6, 2017, page B4), Pam Kragen—bereft of copyediting assistance because the U-T has fired them all, relying instead on a makeshift editorial safety net that results in horrifying oversights—quotes a source as saying, "When they're around her, they feel like their talking to someone like themselves and they relax." To paraphrase Gertrude Stein's famous remark about Oakland, California, "There's no they're there." And then there's that apothegm, "But for the grace of God, their go I."

This just in via email (May 17, 2017) from Consumers Union: "A handful of major internet service providers—including Comcast and Charter, mega-corporations who [sic] control three out of every four broadband consumers in the country—want to take even more control of your internet."

I'm really getting wigged out that corporations and other nonhuman entities are rapidly becoming people. As I explain in depth in my article "The Curious Corporate Who" (link in the sidebar on the right), the relative pronoun "who" properly applies only to human beings, not to companies, schools, governments, or other institutions. The proper relative pronoun for such entities is "that" or "which."

An article on page A1 of The San Diego Union-Tribune (May 5, 2017), by Greg Moran and Lyndsay Winkley, contained this regrettably common accident of style: "[T]he buyer could simply claim to be an employee of one of the many groups that now has permission from the state to buy them. . . ." Did you catch the mistake?

If you guessed that has should have been have because a plural verb has to modify the plural noun groups, pat yourself on the back.

No one would write These are the groups that has permission. But as soon as the words one of get mixed up in a sentence, many people wrongly persuade themselves that one now governs the verb so the verb must be singular. The grammatical truth is that when one of is followed by a plural noun and who or that, the verb that follows must modify the plural noun: This is one of those blunders that are [not "is"] easy to make.

You can see the logic of this immediately if you invert any sentence where one of is followed by a plural noun: “Of the accidents of style that occur on the highway of words, this is one of the most frequent.”

Another way of thinking about the problem is that in this type of sentence you’re talking about many things, not one thing. It’s not the one blunder that is easy to make; it’s one of the many that are easy to make.

Without sportswriters, this column would have far less grist for the mill. So I suppose I should be grimly grateful, in a schadenfreude sort of way, for the blunders that Jeff Sanders of The San Diego Union-Tribune committed in back-to-back sentences in his "Padres Report" of March 13, 2017 (page D3).

Here's the first sentence: "Blash's 13 RBIs leads all major leaguers this spring and are three more than he had last camp."

Did you notice the so-called error of number (a singular-plural disagreement between a noun and a verb)? "RBIs" is a plural noun, so the verb that modifies it must be plural too: "lead," not "leads." Sanders himself confirms this when later in the sentence he uses the plural verb "are," which also refers to "RBIs." What Sanders probably meant to say was that "Blash leads all major leaguers this spring with 13 RBIs, three more than he had last camp." (I'm not entirely comfortable with that odd "last camp" either, but we'll let it slide.)

Here's Sanders's next sentence: "The toe-tap he added clearly jiving with his approach, Blash also has a .364/.483/1.085 through his first 11 games." Let's leave aside the tenuous and awkward connection between the two parts of this sentence and focus on the word "jiving." When you mean "to agree, be in harmony" (which is clearly Sanders's intention), it's "jibe with," not "jive with" or "gibe with." (For more, see Accident 230 in my book The Accidents of Style.)

And here's another whopper from Jeff Sanders in the U-T, March 20, 2017, page D4: "There was a handful of playoff games, all of them losses." The verb "was" doesn't govern "handful"; it governs "games." So it should be "there were a handful of games," not "was."

See if you can find the subtle copyediting error in this sentence from The New Yorker (December 5, 2016, page 83): "Even today, they often run to one extreme or the other: hard-sell (Riverdance) or no-sell (Savion Glover.)" If your answer was, "The period should be outside the close parenthesis after "Savion Glover," you're right. Periods go outside parenthetical elements when they signal an end to the sentence as a whole. They go inside only when what is contained within the parentheses is a complete sentence that is not part of another, larger sentence.

From the "Are You Serious?" department: An article by David Pierson published in The San Diego Union-Tribune (January 31, 2017, page C1) quotes a corporate public relations executive named Michael Gordon as saying, "We're in unchartered territory." Did Gordon actually say "unchartered" instead of the proper "uncharted," and did Pierson, being a journalist faithful to accuracy, then render it as spoken? Somehow I doubt it. I'm betting it was Pierson's booboo and his editor's oversight. But if I'm wrong, then it's high time for journalists to start using sic after such ludicrous gaffes.

From the "C'mon, Really?" department: A photo caption in The San Diego Union-Tribune for a story headlined "Lab Experiments on Dogs Are Cruel and Unnecessary" (Friday, December 16, 2016, page B7) risibly confused "labradors" and "laboratories": "Nevada Sen. Mark Manendo introduced a bill that would require labratories [sic] that conduct research on dogs and cats to put the animals up for adoption after the study work." Just say "abracalabra" and you magically have a new spelling!

Nervous word-choosers, rejoice! In this part-thesaurus, part-hilarious manual of style, Elster breaks down the most common mistakes of the English language. Organized alphabetically, mix-ups range from homonyms to synonyms to incorrectly used turns of phrase, and Elster's explanations are not just extremely useful but riotously fun to read. He uses humor to help commit the rules of the word world to memory, even going so far as including illustrations to make certain distinctions crystal clear. For example, one drawing shows two creatures wielding swords to indicate fight, while the same two creatures gesticulate wildly in the next drawing to illustrate altercation. Elster investigates many classic confusions (forward vs. foreword) but also makes an effort to highlight lesser-discussed blunders, like rack vs. wrack vs. nerve-racking vs. nerve-wracking;spay vs. neuter; and, for the really particular linguaphile, squalid vs. sordid. This book is an entertaining and necessary addition to any shelf. It's perfect for writers looking to double-check their instincts but also for the everyday speaker looking to communicate with clarity and confidence.

The author of this charming and useful book has made a career out of literary finesse. In his latest effort to "clarify the mind and general discourse," the "professional distinctioneer" offers witty, wise advice on the right way to deploy some of the English language's trickiest words, from a and an to zero, zeros, zeroes. An example: is Elster really the "author"? Or is he simply the "writer"? (See page 298.) Study Elster's distinctioneering and it will no longer be your fate to be a sloppy writer. Even if you thought it was your destiny.

And here's a great advance review from Publishers Weekly:

Elster’s entertaining and instructive resource offers helpful suggestions for distinguishing between words often misused in conversation or writing. Elster points out that even professionals are vulnerable to error, as in this quote from the Guardian: “Tweets are stored on the device so you can keep reading even if you loose [lose] your phone signal.” In each of the book’s alphabetical entries, he includes two or more words that are confused, accompanied by clear examples and detailed explanations of the distinction between them. For instance, he writes, “to convince” means to “make someone believe something,” while “to persuade” means “to make someone take action.” The book includes entries both for words commonly used in conversation or writing—such as “amount, number”; “its, it’s”—and for those less commonly used— “capacious, commodious”; “auger, augur.” Elster can be cheeky, as when he decries the use of “empathy” as a “trendy substitute” for “sympathy”: “sympathy is what you should feel for someone who displays a flashy word when an ordinary one is called for. Empathy is what you should feel when you’ve been making the same stupid mistake yourself.” This appealing book will help readers over countless lexical stumbling blocks, and encourage clearer and more precise speaking and writing.

And check out this laudatory review by Andy Hollandbeck at copyediting.com:

"Another great book from Elster."— T. Dreiling, in a five-star review at Amazon.com

"Yet another gem from the inimitable Charles Harrington Elster."— Noor-Allah Noorani, in a five-star review at Amazon.com

"Charles Harrington Elster is a master of the English language and the top authority on vocabulary building. You won't find anything nearly as helpful as Word Workout. His interwoven advice on usage and style is also invaluable." — Jeremy D. Sexton, in a five-star review at Amazon.com

“The Accidents of Style is eminently readable. And if you’re one of us who can’t always remember the difference between eminently and imminently—and more than 350 other thorny usage questions—you’ll want to buy it and keep it near. It is useful, nuanced—and funny, too.”— Constance Hale, author of Sin and Syntax

“This book is perfect for people who want to take their prose from the pothole-filled side streets to the Autobahn. You’ll learn how to avoid errors, barbarisms, redundancies, and other drags on your style. It’s an essential addition to any language lover’s collection. After I read it, I felt like I’d just had my writing engines tuned by a master mechanic. The Accidents of Style is essential for anyone who’s serious about the written word.” — Martha Brockenbrough, author of Things That Make Us (Sic)

"The Accidents of Style by Charles Harrington Elster is a volume every writer should have at hand. It will help you polish your prose, express your ideas more clearly, and avoid numerous errors." — Don Hauptman, author of Cruel and Unusual Puns and Acronymania

Are you so sure about the plural of octopus or the difference between i.e. and e.g.? Do you know which word in the English language has the most definitions, or who put the H in Jesus H. Christ?

If you don't, be assured that Charles Harrington Elster does, and he tells all in this entertaining collection of provocative questions and authoritative answers about word and phrase origins, slang, proper style and usage, punctuation, and pronunciation. Every chapter features original brainteasers, challenging puzzles, and a trove of literary trivia, so be prepared to play while you read.

"Delightfully funny and informative. Every page is filled with amazing and amusing facts about our quirky language. The Wordbook of the Year!" — Sol Steinmetz, author of Semantic Antics and coauthor of Meshuggenary: Celebrating the World of Yiddish

"This book is at once authoritative and lively. Elster knows how to have fun." — Bryan A. Garner, author of Garner's Modern American Usage

Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999, 2005. (ISBN-13: 978-0-618-42315-6 ISBN-10: 0-618-42315-X)Click on the title to read the introductions to the first and second editions.

"The best survey of the spoken field in years."— William Safire, The New York Times Magazine, writing of the first edition in 1999

"The most readable, sensible and prescriptive guide to the words that trip us up . . . bang your shoe on the bookseller's desk until he orders it."— William Safire, The New York Times Magazine, writing of the second edition in December 2005

This book is one man's informed opinion, based on a variety of reputable sources, about the proper pronunciations of hundreds of commonly mispronounced words and names. Here you will find some straight talk on where the stress should fall in harass(ment). You will find out why so many say nucular instead of nuclear, why you should think twice about sounding the "t" in often, and why the pronunciation for-TAY for forte (strong point) is a pretentious blunder. Words that unnerve or trip up many educated speakers—deluge, heinous, milieu, niche, plethora, clandestine, machination, philatelist, unequivocally, assuage, and zoology are but a few examples—you will pronounce hereafter with quiet confidence. In short, you will see how to air is human, to ur divine.

That's right. High school students can painlessly prepare for the SAT and ACT by reading this comedy-adventure novel featuring the inimitable Mark Twain transported via the Internet from 1883 to the 21st-century campus of a prestigious New England university. More than 2,000 essential test words are used in context, highlighted in boldface, and defined in a convenient back-of-the-book glossary.

"TEST OF TIME is a delight — an engaging, imaginative, beautifully written tour de force that pays homage most appropriately to the author who knew that 'the difference between the almost right word and the right word' is 'the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.' As lively and entertaining as it is educational, this is a book Mark Twain himself would have enjoyed."— Shelley Fisher Fishkin, professor of English and director of American Studies, Stanford University, editor of The Oxford Mark Twain, and author of Lighting Out for the Territory: Reflections on Mark Twain and American Culture

"I am an SAT tutor and have found this book . . . valuable to my students. Charles Harrington Elster is a master of his craft; unlike some other books of this type, his vocabulary and grammar are impeccable. As a result, this book is very well written. What a great idea for a book — Mark Twain in 21st-century college America. Test of Time is informative and entertaining."— posted at www.teen-books.com

"This compelling story . . . cleverly illuminates more than 2,000 essential test words by using them in context. If there's a college-bound youth in your life, this book will enable their comprehension by incorporating frequently encountered vocabulary words in a fast-reading story about the exploits of four college students and a garrulous, time-traveling Mark Twain. Exercises and a comprehensive glossary are incorporated, but the brilliance of this test aid is the fun, fast-reading tall tale. Highly recommended!"— www.goodadvicepress.com

"Though a late learner in my forties, I bought this book a few years ago. . . . I've loved this unputdownable book for the plot, humour, wit and much more. This book was so brilliantly written that I bought other books by the same author, Charles Harrington Elster."— Happy-go-lucky on Amazon.com

Written with Joseph Elliot.San Diego: Harcourt, Inc., 1994.(ISBN 0-15-601382-7)Click on the title to read an excerpt from the book.

Say goodbye to word lists and read your way to a stronger SAT vocabulary!

Tooth and Nail is a full-length mystery novel designed to teach the words that appear again and again on the SAT. The book's "novel approach" represents a complete break from the boring SAT-preparation methods of the past. Instead of struggling to learn SAT words by rote, students can easily learn them the natural way, in context. A handy glossary in the back of the book allows the reader to instantly check definitions.

Tooth and Nail offers high school students a creative, innovative, and entertaining way to build their vocabulary, improve their reading comprehension skills, and enjoy a good story all at the same time. Since 1994 this book has been a consistent bestseller, enjoyed by students, recommended by parents, and endorsed by teachers all across the country.

In fact, the "novel approach" to learning vocabulary that Joe Elliot and I invented proved so effective and became so popular that other writers and publishers rushed to imitate it. One audacious person (whose lame idea of writing a vocabulary-building novel was to paraphrase all of L. Frank Baum's Wizard of Oz using SAT words) even tried to steal credit for the innovation. And one lazy publisher — Kaplan, the test-prep outfit — took the parsimonious shortcut of reprinting 19th-century novels in the public domain, such as Frankenstein and Wuthering Heights, with definitions inserted for the literary words.

With Tooth and Nail, and its companion novel, Test of Time, you're not getting paraphrases, gimmicks, or knockoffs. They're the real deal — original stories filled with hundreds of test words (gleaned from dozens of tests) and fun to read.

New York: Random House, 2000. (ISBN 0-375-70932-0)Click on the title to read an excerpt from the introduction.

This is a graduated, comprehensive vocabulary-building program for adults who are serious about using the English language correctly and with confidence. Mr. Elster takes you on an edifying and entertaining tour of the language, coaching you along the way on how to use words with greater clarity, precision, and style.

Here's what they're saying about Verbal Advantage:

"I'm quite pleased with my decision to purchase VA years ago, and . . . it has been very beneficial and enjoyable for me over the years. . . . [I]t's a brilliant accomplishment and truly an astonishing resource. Well done." — Chris Gardner

"I bought your Verbal Advantage program earlier in the year. It has had a profound effect on my life. I never realized how many words I did not know. . . . You have opened up a wonderful world to me and I find myself the new connoisseur of words at the office and at home. . . . I want to thank you for changing my life."— Shane W. Doyle

"I’ve been reading your book Verbal Advantage and I’ve enjoyed every word of it. It helped me improve my GRE verbal score by 160 points, and I was only in Level 4 by then!" — Carlos Anderson

"I can’t tell you how much Verbal Advantage has changed my life by giving me confidence to interact with people everywhere in business and in my personal life. My husband is a golf pro and he feels the same way! We just love YOU to death!" — Antoinette Janeczko

"I want to thank Charles Elster for his book Verbal Advantage! I have been reading it for 6 months now and I can honestly say this has been one of the BEST investments of my life! I read it more than my college textbooks!"— Glen Walden

"I just completed all ten levels of the Verbal Advantage program. It was even more edifying than the advertisements promised. I enjoyed every minute of it, and I review some of the disquisitions from time to time. I'm obsessed with words!"— Reuben Wagler

"Verbal Advantage . . . revolutionized the way I think and communicate in English. I am a 24-year-old man, originally from a small town in India. Currently, I am a graduate student at USC. For a man who spoke no English until the age of 10, I feel very happy when people compliment me on my ability to use words with style and confidence. . . . We all know that there are several language improvement courses on the market. But, I can unequivocally contend that the program devised by you is emancipating people from the shackles of low vocabulary, mispronunciation and misuse of the English language." — Aditya Moitra

"I'm a 22-year-old immigrant from Guatemala who lives in Sunnyvale, California and goes to college. I'm writing this letter to thank you for making the Verbal Advantage program. Building my vocabulary was a struggle at first, having to admit I don't know the exact meanings of words I hear at school. But, I am motivated when I remember what you said in Verbal Advantage, so I don't give up. Thank you, thank you, thank you! What your program has given me is like a second chance. I don't know how I can hold tears of gratitude inside." — Danilo Salguero

"I love your Verbal Advantage program and it has helped me immeasurably in my day-to-day endeavors. I have seen a marked difference in the way I communicate orally and in writing."— Stuart Mushala

“I am a Venezuelan graduate student in physics who is pursuing a Ph.D. program in the U.S. For this I have to take the GRE, which requires having both a large vocabulary and full command of the words you know. Last year I took the GRE and sadly I scored 360/800 in verbal (percentile rank 22). I knew I had to work on my vocabulary if I wanted to attain a better score. Some months ago I came across Verbal Advantage in a bookstore here in Venezuela. . . . No other vocabulary builder gave me more knowledge and insight into words than VA. After a year I took the GRE again . . . and I scored 700/800 (percentile rank 97). And so, I wanted to thank you for publishing such a comprehensive and entertaining book!”— Pedro Montuenga

"[Verbal Advantage] has brought priceless personal and professional enrichment to my life. . . . I've sampled many, but Verbal Advantage is still #1 in my book." — Ken Nero

"I won't importune you with some kind of magniloquent blandishment, but I want to give you credit for your inimitable program Verbal Advantage. I have listened to it four times in the last five months. I've also scrutinized such programs as Million$ Vocabulary, Executive Vocabulary, a complete series of Word Smart, Vocabulary Booster, Word Master, Barron's 550 Words You Need to Know, Verbal Success, Confidence in Context, and many others. All of them offer something useful, but they can only eat the dust of Verbal Advantage. Your program is much better than all of them put together."— Roman from Ukraine

"I'm enjoying Verbal Advantage immensely. . . . You did a splendid job. I learned more in the first half than in all my years spent at college. — Frederick Vollmer

New York: Pocket Books, 1996.Revised & Updated Edition published July 2005.(ISBN 978-1-4165-1086-4)(ISBN 1-4165-1086-9)Click on the title to take a grandiloquent quiz and read a selection of light verse from the book.

"Those who devour words will feast on it."— Diane White, Boston Globe

"Charming and at times hysterical." — Booklist

"Words you never knew you needed—until now."— San Diego Magazine

This is not simply another book about obscure English words. It's an open-armed invitation to go on a mischievous, quirky, madcap expedition through the depths of our unabridged dictionaries, where you will learn about all the exceptional words you never knew you needed to know to live a fuller, more verbally enriched life. There's a Word for It! will help you plug gaping holes in your vocabulary and apply vibrant color to the blank spots in your picture of the world. The book also contains a dazzling selection of light verse by such famous (and fabulous) scribes as Hogden Gnash, Anais Numb, and G. B. Pshaw (click on the title above to read a selection).